“The fire started on the first floor in the living quarters and it proceeded upstairs to the second floor,” Dean said. “In discussions with the mother we know that she went upstairs to notify people.”

Fire officials and a spokeswoman for the Seattle Housing Authority, which owns the building, said a smoke alarm was working.

“She grabbed one of the kids, came downstairs,” Dean said of the mother of three of the victims. “She believed that the rest were following her, and when she got outside they were not.

“We did find the four children and the aunt in the second floor bathroom huddled together.”

Dean acknowledged problems at the scene – a fire engine was unable to pump water and another engine dropped a hose coming to the fire. Had firefighters gotten inside sooner, the first firefighting unit would have spent time on the first floor stopping the fire before moving upstairs to where the victims were found.

“There was definitely a delay in firefighters being able to get there,” Dean said. “I think in looking at the pictures and what we saw and looking at the comments, there was a tremendous amount of fire and smoke prior to the fire department’s arrival, which again makes it pretty hard to sustain life in that type of heated environment.”

Asked if his crews could have done more, Dean said “the firefighters did everything that they were trained to do.”

Watch Dean’s Sunday morning briefing at Station 10 below.

Most reporter questions are included in the videos above. But some questions and short bits of Dean’s responses were missed because the briefing was captured on several short video files.

At the end of the briefing, department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said the radio recordings from the fire crews and additional documents related to the fire could be obtained through public disclosure requests.